Re: Xiki framework (wiki and tree emacs features)

[Craig Muth]

> Looks like you're reproducing OrgMode (http://orgmode.org/).

There's definitely some overlap, but a large amount that doesn't overlap, I think.  (I'm no authority on org mode though.)  Xiki doesn't do the cool scheduling and using a tree as a general html or latex editor stuff, for example.  And I don't think OrgMode has much in the way of general filesystem navigation or searching features, though I could easily be mistaken.  Xiki has a free-form wiki syntax for navigable file trees, file contents, searches, and running shell commands in them such as:

- /tmp/

  - foo/

    - foot.txt

      | Some lines in the file

      | Some lines in the file

  ! ls -l

  - ##food/

    - fool/

      - foof.txt

        | A line that contains "food"

        | Another food line lower down in the file

(The "-" bullets are optional, but allow you to use the mouse to expand/collapse.)

If you watch the web development screencast (http://xiki.org/screencasts/web_development.html) I think you'll recognize many things that aren't in or differ quite a bit from org mode.  Also the 2 screencasts show only a subset of features in xiki.  If there's interest there are about 6 more screencasts I could do.

Where there is overlap (taking notes, etc) xiki takes a very different, less-structured approach.

> Why would an OrgMode user be interested in Xiki?

There are some innovative things in xiki that could potentially be borrowed and merged into org mode, at the very least.

I don't foresee many OrgMode users switching to xiki.  Though, any features could probably augment each other quite nicely.  Like having your notes in Org's format and building up xiki filesystem trees within them.  Or, maybe just using xiki's plugins to generate Merb/Rails apps and browse/maniplate couchdb, for example, or to control Firefox (reloading, sending _javascript_ to it etc.)  or committing to git during web development.

Emacs has a lot of respect / adoption in the ruby community.  Among emacs users who find themselves more proficient in ruby than elisp and have interest in using their code/gems/apps within emacs (a potent combination) I think xiki will be interesting.  Note xiki owes much of its ruby-interaction features to el4r, which it's built on top of.  If you have simple ruby code that accesses an api it is trivial to create a tree-based UI, like the ones for git/couchdb/merb that are shown in the screencasts.

--Craig

On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 1:22 PM, Mark A. Hershberger <address@hidden> wrote:

Craig Muth <address@hidden> writes:

> Interested in hearing your feedback about my framework.  It adds free-form
> wiki and tree features (and many others) to emacs.

Looks like you're reproducing OrgMode (http://orgmode.org/). Why would
an OrgMode user be interested in Xiki?

Mark.

--
http://hexmode.com/

The only alternative to Tradition is bad tradition.
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